T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I believe under the previous order it is now in order for me to offer an amendment.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today it adjourn until the hour of 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 3. I further ask consent that on Wednesday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then begin a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators speaking for up to 5 minutes each, with the following exceptions: Senator Wellstone, or his designee, 9:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.; Senator Thomas, or his designee, 10:15 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Mr. GORTON. I further ask unanimous consent that following morning business the Senate resume consideration of S. 2, under the previous agreement.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Does the Senator from New Mexico remember the dramatic testimony that our Budget Committee task force took of the then- superintendant of public schools for Florida?

Mr. GORTON. They are saying, essentially--and we have heard it on the floor of the Senate in the last hour--that we cannot trust the school authorities in any State in the United States of America, or any school district in any one of those States, to make these decisions on their own without guidance from this body acting as a sort of supernational school board.

Mr. GORTON. When it gets right down to it, that is what their position amounts to.

Mr. GORTON. I will.

Mr. GORTON. This Senator, for example, believes that if there is a shortcoming in this bill, it is that Straight A's is limited to 15 States only and not all the States in the country.

Mr. GORTON. I thank my friend from New Mexico. I will go back to what I see as two distinct currents of criticism from the other side. The first of those is that if we have not reached the goals they set 35 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, we still have to keep running up against that same wall, and the reason we have not succeeded is that we have not imposed enough rules and regulations on schools all across the United States. So what we really need to do--they call it accountability--is to impose more rules and regulations on States and on school districts and on principals and teachers all across the United States to make sure they do exactly what we tell them to do. I strongly suspect that any alternative they come up with will include dozens, if not hundreds, of additional rules and regulations to be imposed on our school districts. There is a second element, a second part of their proposal, and that is if 12, 16, 74, 276 Federal education programs have not really done what they ought to have done, we need another half dozen programs. Again, in the last hour or so, we have heard of some new ways, some new Federal programs which we ought to authorize and on which we ought to spend money. They make that proposition in spite of the dramatic point made by my friend from New Mexico that the most prescriptive of all of the Federal programs--the education for disabled act, the special education provisions--required us as long as almost 30 years ago to come up with 40 percent of the money. It is only in the last couple of years, with the efforts of Members on this side of the aisle, that it has cracked two digits and has reached 11 percent. Instead of saying why don't we properly fund what we promised to fund in programs that carry with it a tremendous number of rules and regulations, why don't we do that? No, no, let's think of half a dozen new programs and let's not abolish any. Now that I think of that last statement, I guess I have to amend it. They do want to abolish one, or at least the President wants to abolish one. He wants us to appropriate no money at all to the sole program in the present education bill which allows the States to spend the money on their own priorities without any controls from the Federal Government. It is a very modest part of our present education system--a very modest part. That is the only one the administration, and I suspect the other side, would just as soon abandon. We, on the other hand, as the Senator from New Mexico points out, do not even go so far as to say we know everything, nothing is right with the present system, no one should be allowed to use it under any circumstances. Running from top to bottom through the proposal we have before this body right now is the right of any State's educational authorities who believe the present system is the best we can come up with to continue to follow it, to continue to use it, to continue to file all of the forms and abide by all of the rules and regulations of the present system. All we are saying, modestly in some respects but I think quite dramatically in other respects, is that you are going to have a choice, education commissioners of the 50 States and, in many cases, the school districts of the several States; you can try a dramatic new system called Straight A's, or 15 of you--and I am very sorry it is only 15-- can try a dramatic new program called Straight A's under which a dozen or a baker's dozen of the present education programs can be collapsed into a single program, rules and regulations thrown out, forms tossed, administrators turned into teachers, as long as you make a legal commitment to one single goal: The kids in your State will get a better education and you will prove it by achievement tests that you design and that you agree will show that improvement over a period of 3 to 5 years. Accountability under the present system means you have filled out all the forms correctly, you have made absolutely certain that you have not spent a dollar that we have said ought to be spent on one purpose for another education purpose or for another student, no matter how well, how validly you have spent that dollar. Accountability under our system means our kids are better educated, they are better fitted to deal with the world in the 21st century. In describing that choice under Straight A's, my friend from New Mexico omitted only one element, but it is an important element. That element is that as against the form of accountability the other side wishes, punishment--you are going to lose your money; you are going to lose your ability to make your own choices; you are going to be fined; or you are going to get a bad audit--we offer a carrot. We say that if after 35 years in which we have failed to close the gap between underprivileged students who are entitled to title I support and the other more privileged students, if you close that gap by raising the achievement of the underprivileged students, you will get more money; you will get a reward; you will get a bonus. They never thought of that in connection with the present program. We do. We do have to supply some discipline, some loss of ability to make your own choices for States that are miserable failures, but we think it every bit as important, perhaps more important, to provide a reward for those systems that do the job right. I must confess that I have a reservation about our own proposal in this connection. We are demanding a great deal because we are demanding that States, in order to get Straight A's, agree to a contract under which the performance of their students will improve, and they sign that contract in order to get control over 5 or 6 or 7 percent of the money they are going to spend on their students, the really modest contribution made by the Federal Government. I would feel a lot more comfortable in the form of accountability we have designed ourselves if the demands we make were more directly proportional to the amount of money we are putting into the system. Even so, I believe there are a minimum of 15 States that will jump at this opportunity to get the Federal bureaucrats off their backs and to say, as we are saying here: Let the decision about what is best for the education of our students be made, by and large, by the people who know their names--the parents, teachers, and principals, and above them, their superintendents and their elected school board members. Let's no longer claim that we in Congress, that people downtown in the Department of Education know all of the answers, and that one set of answers fits every school district, no matter how rural or how urban, no matter west or east or north or south in the United States of America. This bill goes beyond just Straight A's for 15 States. It has, as the Senator from New Mexico described, performance partnership agreements, a modified form of Straight A's, a form that still retains some of the rules and regulations, more than I would like, but also provides a far greater degree of choice and policy-setting authority to our local school boards and to our States and does have two great advantages: One, it is strongly supported by the Governors--Republicans and Democrats--and, two, it is applicable to all of the States. So, even at that level, some States will get three choices, and all will get two: Straight A's, performance partnership agreements, or the present system. Beyond that, our proposal includes the Teacher Empowerment Act, which gives much more flexibility to the way in which we compensate our teachers, train our teachers, and determine what the requirements for those teachers are, and a very real degree of choice with respect to title I, especially for failing schools, where instead of saying that title I is focused on schools and on systems, we will say, again, for those States and for those communities that wish to do so, title I will be focused on the individual students who are eligible, the underprivileged students who are eligible, so that they, and not the systems and not particular schools, will be the goals of title I. Has the present title I been so successful that it cannot stand a change, even a change that offers an option to States and to individual school districts? That is what we hear from the other side of the aisle, that it would be terrible. We have 35-year-old reports cited concerning things that happened two generations ago as an argument against any kind of innovation today and as an argument for maintaining a system that, bluntly, has not worked, that has not worked at all. At its most fundamental level, this is a debate about who knows best and who cares most: Members of this body and people working in the bowels of the Department of Education in Washington, DC, or those men and women all across the United States of America who are concerned about the future of their children, those men and women all across the United States of America who have dedicated their entire professional lives to providing that education for our children--their teachers and their principals and their superintendents--and those men and women across America who, in almost every case without compensation, have entered the political arena and have run for and have been elected to school boards in their various communities. Our opponents of this bill say that none of these people should be trusted; only we should be trusted. We say we want to repose far more trust and confidence in those individuals all across the United States of America, we want to hold them accountable, but we want to hold them accountable on the basis of their results, and their results only. That is what the debate will be about for the balance of this week and perhaps next week, as well.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, if there were a secret poll taken in this body to determine an MVP, Most Valuable Player, my own suspicion is that would be the Senator to whom my own vote would go, the senior Senator from New Mexico, who has just spoken to us with such eloquence. He manages to work thoughtfully on the widest range of issues of any Member of this body that I know. The minute the debate on the budget resolution, with which he is charged, is over, he is on to another subject, whether it is energy or national defense or education or Social Security. It is a privilege to be his colleague. It is a privilege to be his friend. It is also a little bit difficult at times because after his introduction to this bill, this Senator, even as an author of the bill, can do nothing to improve on the remarks of the Senator from New Mexico but maybe only to rephrase them slightly and offer his support for them. I think what we gain from this debate, from what the Senator from New Mexico has said, what we heard from the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from New Hampshire and others, is that there may not have been another instance in the last half dozen years on any major subject-- perhaps the Senator from New Mexico might agree with me, with perhaps the exception of the debate on welfare reform--in which the old and the new were so magnificently and so dramatically contrasted as are the new, fresh ideas, fresh approaches to this problem outlined in this bill and outlined by its supporters as opposed to the passionate defense of the status quo by so many on the other side. The Senator presiding and the Senator from New Mexico will remember that was the essential division in the debate over welfare reform. We were told of all of the disasters that would take place if we dramatically reformed our welfare system. Now, a few years later, no one, for all practical purposes, can remember that he or she opposed that reform; it has been so magnificently successful. Mr. President, I predict the same fate for this debate if, in fact, we are successful in carrying out the dramatic and innovative and constructive changes that are included in this bill. We have heard basically two arguments from the other side of the aisle.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. For the information of all Senators, on Wednesday there will be a period of morning business until 11 a.m. Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Under the previous order, there will be four amendments debated during tomorrow's session, and therefore Senators can expect votes throughout the day. As previously announced, the Senate will not meet on Friday in order to accommodate the Democratic retreat.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee substitute be agreed to, the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 519, H.R. 3707.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for the transaction of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from consideration of S. Res. 275, and the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution and preamble be agreed to en bloc, that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, with no intervening action.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the amendments to the preamble be agreed to, and the preamble, as amended, be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating to this resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 514, S. Con. Res. 81.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to, the bill be read a third time and passed, the amendment to the title be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Banking Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 3642, and that the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, Senator Feinstein has a substitute amendment at the desk, and I ask for its consideration.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that S. 2443 be star printed with the changes that are at the desk.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, for nearly 60 years, the citizens of the Tri-Cities in Washington state, Richland, Kennewick and Pasco, have worked to guarantee our nation's nuclear defense. Now it's time for the federal government to guarantee these citizens--and the rest of the Northwest--that the nuclear waste produced at Hanford will be moved to an adequate storage facility for permanent disposal. The Hanford site contains 177 underground tanks full of radioactive and chemical byproduct waste. These aren't small tanks--some are as large as a four story apartment building, and, in toto, they hold 54 million gallons of waste: two-thirds of the nation's defense-related nuclear waste. This waste resulted from nearly 45 years of plutonium production at Hanford. Unfortunately, at least 66 of these tanks have exceeded their design life by thirty years and have leaked radioactive waste into the soil near the Columbia River. This problem is not going away. We need a safe, permanent repository for this waste. We need the federal government to be focused on opening the repository. We need this nuclear waste legislation to become law. Many of the opponents of this legislation are acting as if they do not want a solution to this problem at all. They would rather have commercial waste stored at reactors all around the country and defense waste stored in temporary structures, including the leaking underground tanks at Hanford. Delaying work on the repository is not the answer. Continuing with the present situation is irresponsible. I urge an override of the President's veto of this nuclear waste legislation.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent the resolution, as amended, be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to this resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Schumer.